Actually, you can still have Fan Page gates, but they can't be for when the user directly arrives at your Fan Page. The 'little boxes' under the cover photo can still lead to a Reveal Page area, good for things like Coupons, newsletter signups or whatever you want. There's no way to deny a user from seeing your Activity stream, but you can still incentivize them to Like your page.
Hope that makes sense and helps, but if not, let us know. In general, it definitely sounds like you're looking for Page functionality and not the Canvas.
Best of luck!
Alex