Idling for more than sixty seconds is illegal here in Norway. Of course not many people are prosecuted for it. And as for not getting the engine started again

Idling for more than sixty seconds is illegal here in Norway. Of course not many people are prosecuted for it. And as for not getting the engine started again, well that might have been a problem fifty years ago but in all my more than three decades in Norway I have not had any trouble starting a car in the cold except when I have left the car unused for weeks so that the battery is low. Perhaps you are right about Alaska though, much colder there.